Ombre soap

For the October Soap Crafting Club we made the LabColor ombre soap from Ann-Marie’s Soap Crafting book (I suggest you get it because it is AMAZING full color and pretty designs with simple instructions). This recipe was a complex design with nine layers layer so be aware that you should use a tried and true slow moving fragrance/ Essential oil (I used Bramble Berry’s cranberry fig which I love).

I would also like to add that while trying to get the colorant amounts just right I forgot to split of the 12 oz for the purple layers so when you make this your top layers would bee a nice pink not my purplie pink.

**** A side note for all the soapers and soon to be soapers I really suggest signing up for the winter Soap Crafting Club. Once a month you receive all the ingredients (including colorants and FO/EOs) for one recipe in the Soap Crafting book, and on the first month you get a new nice wood mold with its silicone liner (if it has one)!! All you have to supply are bowls, a stick blender, utensils and lye. Going off into another direction I forgot to mention the oils come premixed! It saves more time than you think all you have to do is throw the bag in the microwave, then pour it into a bowl to mix the lye in!!!(Could you tell I am excited about this??)

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!!

I was not paid to review the Soap Crafting Club or the book these are my personal opinions on the products.

Soaping up a Winter Wonderland

Sorry that I haven’t blogged in over a month had a ton of appointments and no time to soap:(. So for the last few weeks I have been busy making a bunch of Christmas/ winter soaps!

Fir needle Mantra swirl Christmas soap

First I have the classical holiday soap with a mantra swirl of red, green, and a touch of gold. The scent is the distinctively Christmassy smell of a fresh cut fir tree.

After my soap batter had reached emulsification I added 1.5 oz (for 2 lbs of oils) of Fir needle essential oil, this EO is very slow to trace so I had plenty of time to play with the design. To achieve the colors I first split of about a 1/3 of a cup of thinly traced soap in a condiment squeeze bottle (the kind you find ketchup an mustard in, they are easily found in a craft store or Target), and added around a ¼ of a teaspoon of gold mica. The remaining soap batter was and split in half. The first half was colored with 1 teaspoon of red rainbow mica (soon to be discontinued along with all other rainbow micas) and the other half was colored with 1/3 of a teaspoon of a mixture of 2 parts green oxide and 3 parts green rainbow mica. To get a full tutorial look HERE.

Fresh snow drop swirl

The second batch was a drop swirl made with Wholesale Supplies Plus’s Fresh Snow. This fragrance oil was described as: a cheerful blend of fresh mint, blooming jasmine and pine needles. I love this FO! While it did speed things up and had minor ricing (nothing that couldn’t be blended into submission) it was totally worth it.

To pull of the design I scented the soap with 1oz(.5 ppo) of fresh snow then split the batch into half, and one of the halves into half. I colored the 50% portion of batter with ½ a teaspoon of titanium dioxide and poured it into the mold until it was half way full. The 2 smaller portions were colored different shades of blue; the darker shade was colored with 1/3 of a teaspoon of blue oxide and the lighter with 1/3 of a teaspoon of blue rainbow mica. I poured the blues into the mold linear motions. After slightly swirling the top of the loaf I sprinkled some snow worthy glitter on top!

Hot Chocolate themed soap

My most recent batch is a blend I call mint hot cocoa, it is a blend of spearmint essential oil and Bramble Berry’s Hot Cocoa fragrance oil which out of the bottle smelled like those cheep “Hershey” chocolate lip glosses but it really bloomed out nicely in soap.

In this batch I made a few minor changes to my usual recipe, changing out shea butter for cocoa butter and adding an ounce of heavy cream deducted from the water amount.

For the design I first reserved 12 fluid ounces of unscented (this is important as the Hot Cocoa FO discolors) batter and scented the remaining amount with .85oz of hot cocoa and .15 oz of spearmint EO (again for 2lb of oils). After coloring the scented batter with 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder I poured it 2/3 the way up the mold. With a small sifter I dusted the surface with green rainbow mica for a pencil line. I went on to slowly pour the unscented batter over a spatula close to the surface of the previous layer as not to brake through. Finally I textured the top with a spoon to make it look more like whipped cream then sprinkled the top with the green mica and cocoa powder.

 I hope you enjoyed my blog and happy soaping!!

Washing Three' Birds with One Bar (of soap of course!)

Last month I signed up for the Bramble Berry's Soap Crafting Club, which basically every month for a session you get all the ingredients lye, oils (premixed), fragrance/ essential oils, colorants, and even a nice wooden mold the first month to make a recipe from Ann-Marie's amazing new book, Soap Crafting. September was natural colorants (on page 57 for those of you who have the book) and it came with annatto seeds with sweet almond oil to infuse the seeds in and 1.5oz fir needle essential oil, which I didn't do because I had other plans... If you have read my blog before you know I have been planning a beer soap for a while now (if not it's here and here) and this was the perfect excuse to make it! Also there is Amy's of Great Cakes Soapworks soap challenge club and this month was the Dandelion Zebra Stripe, which I have wanted to try for a while so I just mixed all these plans up into one bar of soap!

     It is scented with a blend of .5oz of lemongrass EO and .15oz of anise EO (for my 2lb batch) to go with the lemongrass and anise beer that I substituted my water for in my lye infusion. The base is colored with an annatto infusion and the stripes were keeping in the natural colorant theme by being made with cocoa powder (which didn’t mix in well) and nettle leaf powder. The soap batter went quicker than I expected it to but luckily I was semi-prepared with instead of pouring or spooning the batter on I put it into two squirt bottles (which I thought was pretty helpful) and the thickening also causes a lot of air bubbles in the top half of the bar of soap.

Happy soaping and Follow my new Pinterest!! 

Beer Soap Part II- Fragrance Blend

I have been planning a beer soap for my dad for a while now and when I found a craft beer (see here) and I got an idea. So I ordered some anise and lemongrass EO(they are the 2 special ingredients in the beer) from BB and then came the task of figuring out the ratios of the blend in which the problem lies... none of my blends are working out and the best one my dad hates sooo... have any of you done good blends with either lemongrass or anise?? (if they had both they would be amazing!) and here are my blends so far

• 1:1 lemongrass to anise(this is the best so far) 
• 1:2 lemongrass to anise
• 1:1:1 lemongrass to anise to WSP's fresh vanilla
• 2:3:1 lemongrass to anise to WSP's fresh vanilla

 I think I will do the 1st blend and will make the soap most likely this coming week.

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!

Beer soap Prep

     August apparently was Craft beer month in Virginia and at the local grocery store I saw a lemongrass and anise beer! Can you imagine this scented with lemongrass and anise essential oils (well first I will need to see how they blend). First problem can when I realized I did not own either of these EOs so before I make this soap so now I need to order them :(. I was getting impatient so I decided to go ahead and boil the alcohol out and since it was a 25oz bottle and my recipe calls for only 12oz of liquid I decied to concentrate it and boil half off. Well then lunch came and went (we ate antelope stroganoff, a whole other story) and I was 90% sure I turned off the stove.... I didn't and this is what I ended up with

     Instead of being reduced in half it was reduced by about a 23rd of its original size, so I guess this will be deduced from my water amount and I will add it at trace. All I can say is at least it didn't burn

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!

p.s. I will update you on the beer soap!!!!!

Soapy Marathon

     Hi y'all! I got my order last week from Wholesale Supplies Plus, they were having a sale on ALL their 2oz FOs and I picked up 7 new ones!!! So this past week I have been soaping up a storm (at least in my world) and have made 3 batches and there will be more to come...

     First I made WSP's wild honeysuckle which is smells so soft and realistic and it soaped pretty well too for a floral. I soaped at .5 oz ppo and the sent stayed well not to heavy of a scent. I did a faux funnel pour with green oxide, an annotto infusion and plain batter.

     The second is WSP's Home sweet home (used at .5 oz ppo) it is a nice fall scent who's main note is cinnamon, it really reminded me of a nice fall night by the fire. For this FO I had big plans, it was going to look like a fire against the night sky it did not turn out the way I wanted at all the black was poured at a way thicker trace then i wanted it to be and went farther into the "flame" then I wanted it to. To color it I used red and yellow oxide for the flame and black oxide for the sky, finally I dusted the top with gold mica to represent the stars. Besides the design I love this soap it stayed true and strong and I love the spiciness in it. Also just a note for those of you who used it it gelled really fast and almost overheated on me.

     Finally my most recent soap WSP's English Tea Rose(used at .6oz ppo), it is a very realistic rose scent but it's not the old lady rose that you think of it is fresher in my opinion. It stuck pretty well for me but it set up fast like barely got it in the mold fast, luckily I had premixed my colorants and FO in to the oils before adding my lye or else it probably wouldn't have worked. I colored it with a mix of pink sparkle mica and neon pink colorant topped off with a layer of gold mica. Even though it did move fast I love this scent and will make a lot more soap with it, and also it is fine to soap with if your are prepared and are only doing 1 color.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!!!

Plus, I will leave you with a new puppy pic!

Back from Vacation and Puppies!

I had fun in Washington but sadly I couldn't go to Otion :( but I got my preorder of Soap Crafting by Anne-Marie Faiola of Soapqueen and brambleberry. After reading the book I was so excited to make some of the recipes then puppies happened... My dog Sheba went into labor at 8pm Thursday and had her first puppy was born at 4am on Friday and the last at 9am. They are all healthy and happy (and might I add ADORABLE!). But hopefully tomorrow I can soap!  (and don't worry I have puppy pics to hold you over until I have made and cut some soap)

thanks for stopping by (and stay tuned for puppy updates) 

Discoloring Fragrances and vacation

So first off I will not be blogging the next few weeks because I am going to visit my best friend, Willa. She lives on a small island off Seattle called Bainbridge Island (if you have any sights to see in Washington I would love your input) and I am soo excited!!!!

(I am on the right and willa is on the left)

Now on another note here is my update on the discoloration of Brambleberry's  dragon's blood(cybilla)

it has discolored quite a bit in 1 week! Hopefully it is done though because is is quite dark. So here it is.

(left is current and right is about a week ago)

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!

soap pictures!!

Hey guys! Sorry that I haven't posted any stuff yet I have had a hectic schedule and haven't been soaping but now here are some of 

my latest creations!

     This is BB's Tomato Leaf not a big fan of this kind of scent in general but it was my moms one request but when I got it and smelt it I really liked it. It is herbaceous with a hint of what I think is floral but according to my mother it does not smell like a real tomato plant. (update 9/3/13 after a 5 week cure it has gotten that realistic tomato leaf scent to it.) My inspiration came from (I think) Nearly Natural Living if you look really close you might see a gold mica pencil line seperating the red and green on top i swirled some left over red batter and gold mica.

     This is my first attempt of the matra swirl with BB's dragons blood cybilla. This FO smells sooo good it is sweet but still very masculine but, it is a discoloring FO this pic was taken a day after it was cut so it is still turning darker I will do an update pic on this one though. the brown side is the uncolored soap and the other side is some black oxide and on top I did a stripe or uncolored and unscented soap to swirl.

     Finally there is my Buckroe Beach soap made with ocean water and sand (in the tan section) also it has a little M&P wine bottle to top it off! this is scented with WSP's yuzu (I got for free!!!!). Everyone loves this scent it is just bright and citrusy and just screams summer. The blue water section did thicken up on me and you can see air bubbles and the top looks a bit rough but oh well it is a pretty soap any way.

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!

Welcome

Hi! Welcome to my new blog, my name is Anna Rose and I am a newbie soaper.  I have decided to start this blog to catalogue my soaping adventures and to share my passion of making beautiful soaps.

I hope you enjoy!